The present invention relates generally to communication systems and, more particularly, to a method and system for determining whether a person is potentially unavailable for communication.
Communication technology has reached the point where people are accessible at almost any time and location. Unfortunately, conventional communication technology does little to address the problem of making connections between people at appropriate times or in accordance with appropriate social conventions. In some conventional communication systems, the user can explicitly set his or her availability status in the network, but this approach results in availability information that is only sporadically obtainable and is often outdated or simply wrong.
In the past, research has been conducted on awareness systems that give a contacting party some context regarding the party they are trying to contact. Instant messaging (IM) systems are a recent example of such an awareness system. One of the most compelling features of instant messaging (IM) systems is presence, which is generally used in the context of communications systems to indicate whether a person can be reached via a synchronous communication network. Presence information is helpful to a contacting party, but does not provide the contacting party with any indication as to how receptive the party being contacted is to being interrupted. In addition, in current IM systems, presence is typically detected from the use of an input device, e.g., a keyboard or a mouse, for a computer. This provides an indication of device presence, which does not always equate to physical presence. When a person's presence is determined primarily on the basis of device presence, the person is susceptible to being contacted when they are most busy and least receptive to interruption, e.g., when they are typing a document on the computer.
In view of the foregoing, there is a need for communication technology that facilitates communication between people who are not aware of each other's activities and availability by not only enabling a contacting party to determine whether a person can be reached for communication, but also enabling the contacting party to determine how receptive that person is to being contacted.